BJP rejects Congress charges on buying of land

PTI | New Delhi | November 25, 2016 8:20 pm

Rejecting as “absurd and
preposterous” the Congress’ charge linking its purchase of land in
different places to demonetisation, the BJP on Friday said the exercise was
part of its chief Amit Shah’s decision last year to have a party office in
every organisational district.

“It is absurd to allege that the
party has started buying properties in view of demonetisation. In the Maha
Sampark Abhiyan held in Bangalore on July 5, 2015, party president Amit Shah
had emphasised the need of having offices across the country till the
grassroots level as our membership was already crossing 10 crore,” Union
Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a statement.

As part of the expansion programme,
Shah had also called for collecting funds for this purpose and establish party
offices, he said, adding that the party chief had also urged party workers to
contribute generously.

A central committee and sub-committees
at state level were formed to give effect to this decision, he said.

“The party and its karyakartas
have been working relentlessly for the last 16 months to achieve this. It is
preposterous to suggest that a normal activity undertaken by the party as part
of its regular and decided agenda to expand at the grassroots levels had
anything to do with the demonetisation scheme which has come into effect from
November 9, 2016,” he said.

He quoted Shah as having said in his
speech in Bangalore that “we have taken up work of building party offices.
Without a good party office, there can be no expansion of party work within a
district. Therefore, we have decided that by December 2016, in every
organisational district across the country, we will construct a new party
office.”

Earlier in the day, Congress and
Janata Dal (United) cited purchase of land in different parts of Bihar to allege
a scam, saying organisational leaders in the saffron party were informed in
advance about the demonetisation decision so that they could use their
“unaccounted cash” for this purpose.